


Supposed to Be

by jetplane



Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Bombing, Bombs, Fire, Gen, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26830027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetplane/pseuds/jetplane
Summary: After Adrian Bale detonates a bomb in Boston, Morgan waits with his family to hear the news about his team.prompt: collapsed building (day 4)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946050
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Supposed to Be

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be honest - this is not my best work. I didn't get to explore as much of this premise as I would have liked, so I will likely edit/rewrite this story after Whumptober. Just so you're aware.

“Derek!”

The agent rolls over sleepily in bed to see his sister Sarah standing over him, roughly shaking his shoulders. Her eyes are pinched with worry.

He rubs his eyes and glances at his alarm clock. It’s not supposed to go off for another hour. “What is it?” he mutters.

“Get up,” she urges.

“Why? What's going on?” In response, she takes his hand. He lets himself be dragged out of bed without protest and follows her down the hall and into the living room.

His mom gives him a tense smile as she sees him. Both Desiree and she are huddled around the TV, watching the news. “Hey, baby,” she says.

“What’s going on?” Morgan’s eyes drift to the TV screen, and he frowns. The banner across the news feed is huge. FBI STANDOFF ENDS IN BOMBING, SUSPECT IN CUSTODY, it declares over footage of a burning, half-destroyed building. “Where is this?”

He knows before his sister opens her mouth. “Boston,” she says, her tone apologetic.

Derek closes his eyes. His team is in Boston, helping another unit with a bomber. “Casualties?”

Fran shakes her head. “They don’t know anything yet.” But the line underneath the heading tells them that there are MULTIPLE FATALITIES SUSPECTED.

“I need to call Gideon.” Derek frantically pats down his pants before remembering he’s still wearing pajamas. “Where’s my phone?” He runs to his room and snatches the cell phone off his nightstand.

It rings and rings as Morgan paces around his bed. “Come on, come on, come on,” he mutters. It goes to voicemail. “Come on, Gideon, pick up.” He tries two more times with no luck. Derek shakes his head in frustration and dials Hotch’s number. The second time he hears Hotch’s prerecorded message, he has to fight the urge to throw something across the room.

“Derek?” His mother’s gentle voice floats in from the doorway. Her eyes ask a silent question as she sees her son’s white-knuckled grip on his phone.

“They’re not picking up,” he says frustratedly. He tries to call JJ, but her phone goes to voicemail without ever ringing. Either she’s turned it off or...Morgan doesn’t want to think about what else could have happened. JJ wouldn’t have been in the field. Her job was on the outside. But she was a trained field agent, and with Derek being gone…

He shakes the thought out of his head and dials Spencer. When he receives the generic computerized voice telling him to leave a message, it’s the last straw for Derek and he chucks the phone onto his bed. “Damn it!” Morgan had promised Reid two weeks ago that he’d help him set up a personalized voicemail. He’d forgotten about that until right now.

“Derek.” His mom’s hand is on his shoulder.

Morgan closes his eyes and tries to rub the tension out of his forehead. “I’m sorry. I just - I wish I knew what was going on.”

“Don’t apologize,” she says. “I know this is difficult for you.”

He sighs. “I should’ve been there.”

Fran takes her son’s shoulders and turns him to face her. They lock eyes. “Derek Morgan, I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.”

Morgan pulls away and sits down on his bed. “It’s true, Momma.” He shakes his head. “I don’t even know which bomb squad they were working with.”

“This is not your fault,” she asserts firmly. She sits by Derek’s side and takes his hand. “Don’t put this on yourself.” She doesn’t tell him that she’s glad he’s with her and not them.

They sit in silence for a while before Sarah comes back to look for them. She knocks on the half-open door. “Derek?”

Morgan turns to look at her. “What happened?”

“Desi thinks she saw one of your friends on the TV.”

His heart leaps into his throat as he pushes off the bed. Darting around his sister, he stumbles into the living room. “Who is it?” he demands. “What did you see?”

She touches an image on the screen. “That’s him, isn’t it? The genius doctor?”

Morgan hurries to the TV and then nearly falls to the ground. The picture is blurry, but there’s no mistaking Reid’s godawful striped sweater and the messenger bag that’s always attached to his shoulder. “Yeah,” he croaks out in relief, watching as the figure moves civilians behind the police line. “That’s Reid.”

Desiree gives him a tentative smile. “That’s good, right? He’s okay. That means the rest of your team probably is, too.”

He kneels in front of the screen anxiously as the TV shows a new angle from a different camera. “I don’t know,” he replies as he scrutinizes the picture. “I don’t see anyone else.”

Sarah squeezes her brother’s shoulder and hands him his cell phone, which he accepts with a nod. He tries Gideon’s number again.

Fran watches from a few feet behind her children. “Just because they’re not answering their phones doesn’t mean something’s happened to them.”

“I know, I know,” Morgan says tiredly, punching more buttons into his phone. “I just can’t sit here, not knowing-”

“Derek.” Desiree’s voice is tense. He turns back to look at the TV just in time to see two first responders exiting the collapsed building with a body bag.

“Oh, God,” Fran whispers.

Morgan feels like he can’t move. All he can do is stand rooted in the middle of the living room as first responders wheel a second body bag out of the wreckage, then a third. With each, Derek can hear his mother mutter a prayer. He wonders if she’s praying for them or their families.

He doesn’t even notice his phone when it lights up until his sister nudges him. “Derek,” she says. “Your phone is ringing.” He looks down in his hand, and sure enough, he has an incoming call. It’s from JJ.

“JJ, what’s going on? Are you alright? What happened out there?” he asks.

“Morgan,” she replies breathlessly. “I’m alright. But it’s crazy out here. We think Bale detonated remotely and I - I really can’t talk right now.”

“Wait,” he says. “JJ, there are bodies.”

She sighs. “We lost four SWAT agents, and at least three more are critical.” Morgan closes his eyes and braces for the worst. “But there were no civilian casualties, and the team is okay.”

Derek immediately feels relieved, then feels terrible for feeling that way when four people are still dead. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been there.”

“It’s not about you,” JJ says, and Morgan swears he can hear her shake her head. “Morgan, I really have to go. Bye.” The other end goes dead, leaving Derek staring at his phone screen.

When he finally looks up, his mother and sisters are staring at him. “The team is okay,” he says. “The bodies...they were SWAT agents.”

Sarah and Desiree look away. Fran squeezes his shoulder again. “Are you okay?” she asks.

He just shrugs. “I should have been there.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the abrupt ending; I couldn't really find a good stopping point. But thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to leave me any comments or suggestions below or at jet-plane.tumblr.com!


End file.
